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SABAM Wants Truckers To Pay For Listening To Radio
guruevi writes "SABAM, the Belgian RIAA, wants truckers to start paying for the copyrights to listen to the radio in their cabin (Google translation of Dutch original). SABAM already has a system in place to extract fees from businesses for having radios in the work area for businesses with more than 9 employees, and they find that truckers' cabins are areas of work and thus infringe on their copyrights. The local politicians think this is going too far; they believe truckers need a radio for safety reasons and view a truck cabin as 'an intimate place.'"
Truck stops often offer a free shower in their facility with a minimum fuel purchase. Given that fuel prices are high and trucks have rather large fuel tanks, spending $250 on a fill up is not at all uncommon. Thus if you flip things around, it becomes 'free diesel' with the purchase of a '$250 shower'. Just a way of making it sound cute, especially when the facilities aren't exactly up to par.
And a lot lizard, for those still unsure, is just a prostitute that works a truck stop.
Anyway, 10m is the 28MHz amateur radio band (10m being the wavelength). Ham gear is more powerful, and can drive larger linear amplifiers (the 'kicker' in CB parlance). A 1600W linear is going to need around 100W of drive, so the ham radio would work nicely. I think the legal limit of a CB is something like 10W, which would underdrive the linear.
The US obsession with RF power never ceases to amaze me, especially when I'm using 5W to talk to an operator running 1500W. The QRP mantra: power is no substitute for skill.
As you say, I can't believe I am biting at the troll ...
"The industry is dying."
Not fast enough. It needs to be shot in the face.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."